Lamenting the SuperGrafx

[spenoza]

The SuperGrafx was an interesting experiment by NEC, and my understanding is that devs and the market both were thoroughly "meh" about the system, especially as a response to the SNES. The SGX came out a mere 2 years after the original PC Engine's debut and by all accounts was too expensive for what it was. But one of the system's strengths should have bought it more life: compatibility. I know there are a couple games that are incompatible with it, but the fact that it could play 99% of the existing library (when attached to a CD unit, something it could clearly do) should have bought it, if not more time, a later reprieve. By the time 1991 rolled around and the Core II and Duo were released, memory and component prices should have dropped enough that the SGX would no longer have been such an expensive boondoggle to recreate. I think NEC should have released, instead of the Core II and standard Duo, a Super Core and a Super Duo, incorporating the extra capabilities of the SGX. The Super Duo would have been the complete package with full compatibility, and the Super Core would allow users to replace their original PC Engine or Core but keep their existing CD-ROM unit. This would have opened the door to enhanced CD titles, or perhaps even hybrid titles.

Obviously, I don't know what was really going on behind the scenes, and I'm sure NEC had reasons to never look back, but it's fun to think about what might have been.

[dshadoff]

As a developer, you wouldn't want to support it:
- invest additional money into developing something 'above and beyond'
- sell into a smaller market, because less than 100% of gamers have your required configuration

The formula just doesn't tend to work unless there is a 'critical mass' of ownership.
And that ownership comes from having a good selection of games... and that selection comes from developers investing.
Catch-22.

And it would be more than twice as difficult the second time around, after the initial SuperGrafx had already 'failed' (ie. failed to flourish) due to limited games and poor take-up.

[spenoza]

And yet, this is what they did with the Super CD and Arcade CD formats. Each required an additional purchase or new equipment, and the newer formats wouldn't play on older systems without that additional purchase. It's not at all unprecedented on the PCE.

[dshadoff]

...If the games sell the feature.
Obviously the SuperGrafx didn't achieve its goal and they decided other approaches were needed. Developers stated at the time (and in retrospect it makes perfect sense) that the CPU struggled to drive two VDCs.

CD was a success, but hard to work with because of memory limitations; SuperCD solved that by adding more memory which was exactly what the developers needed.

Both SuperCD and Arcade Card were incremental costs - similar to the cost of a game - rather than the cost of a whole new console. And the initial games released on both platforms were interesting enough to drive those sales.

[spenoza]

I think that's a much stronger point. The PC Engine is no stranger to incremental upgrades, but it would be a more expensive upgrade for those who already had a PCE or Core I and a CD-ROM unit, because they'd have to replace the entire Core. And that barrier would have indeed potentially split the base sooner. That said, anyone who was going to spot for a Duo might not have minded some minor additional expense. By the time the Arcade CD came along I think only the die-hards were left anyway. Sega's Sega CD was not a cheap expansion and added tons of additional hardware and was comparatively popular (I'm still not sure how the Sega CD can have managed equivalent sales to PC Engine CD-capable units, but the only sales data I can find suggests that's the case).

[Black_Tiger]

If the SuperGrafx was dragged along as a potential for bonus features in games, it's likely that in almost every case SGX mode would only bump the player and effect speites to the second layer to eliminate flicker.

It still would have been nice to have had built in to the Duos though.

[spenoza]

I concur. I think that would likely have been the case. Or some games might support a secondary background layer in some areas. Honestly, in terms of CPU impact, it would probably be easier to deal with the background tile layer.

[Gaijin D]

Nov 13, 2020 18:35:15 GMT spenoza said:

(I'm still not sure how the Sega CD can have managed equivalent sales to PC Engine CD-capable units, but the only sales data I can find suggests that's the case).

I imagine the main reason was simply that it was available in more markets. Basically, PCE CD sold well just in Japan, and Sega CD sold badly to mediocre in lots of places. Unless you're looking specifically at just Japan numbers?

[a]

I for one would rather have seen NEC put more energy into engineering and producing higher capacity hucard games earlier. More than just Street Fighter 2 would have been nice. More ROM would go a long way in the PCE in making it look more on par with the 16 bit gen consoles

[dshadoff]

Nov 13, 2020 22:58:22 GMT Gaijin D said:

Nov 13, 2020 18:35:15 GMT spenoza said:

(I'm still not sure how the Sega CD can have managed equivalent sales to PC Engine CD-capable units, but the only sales data I can find suggests that's the case).

I imagine the main reason was simply that it was available in more markets. Basically, PCE CD sold well just in Japan, and Sega CD sold badly to mediocre in lots of places. Unless you're looking specifically at just Japan numbers?

Clearly, Sega was more of a force in Europe and North America than NEC was.

But in Sega's case, the market was split into two separate target configurations: cartridge and CD, because sell-through of the CD add-on was limited.
On the other hand, CD add-on sell-through was approaching 100% for the PC Engine as time went on.

[a]

I don’t there is any alternate history scenario where the SuperGrafx succeeds honestly... best case scenario NEC abandons the idea early and uses their resources on trying fo make the TG16 a bigger success. It was simply too early for a successor to the PCE. What the PC Engine really needed is better marketing and sales in non-japanese markets which would make the platform more attractive to developers. What would you rather release your game on, the PCE which is a failure outside of Japan or Super Famicom and Megadrive which are popular worldwide? This also probably is the reason why the real SuperGrafx had only a literal handful of games... nobody wanted to waste their time on a system that nobody owned or even wanted. The public—consumers and developers—were too busy being hyped about finally getting a successor to the almighty famicom to give a shit about a supergrafx console that looks ridiculous and ugly with games that barely look any better. They were perfectly happy playing their famicoms they already had and their small selection of PCE games that were already available. Plus arcades were still a huge thing back then. If anything the only hardware PCE owners would want to invest in in 1989 would be the CD add on, not a whole new freaking console after only 2 years. Its almost as if NEC feared the PCE+CD wasnt good enough.

[SignOfZeta]

Your timeline is off. If you examine release dates you’ll see that the SGX was clearly EOLed before it was actually released. Nobody had any faith in it soon after conception and it was known that it wasn’t going to be a hit because they had ensured that by already moving back to regular PCE development prior to the actual SGX launch.

The thing was stupid. Real stupid. And it was twice the price of any other system. At some point they put the brakes on the whole idea, stopping the release of that insane power console controller thing and any new software projects, but not the actual system itself. This probably saved face for some old man or fulfilled a contract somewhere. Think of the US Vita TV, PS TV or whatever, it very nearly went straight to clearance (weeks) and support was friggn horrible. None of that would have been an issue if it was just a consolized Vita, but they were marketing it otherwise so Netflix never worked on it, PS Mobile games never worked on it, etc. At some point they had big plans to make it a Chromecast sort of thing and then they just gave up, I’m pretty sure before the actual release, leaving you with a brand new dead console.

[Black_Tiger]

It was simply too early for a successor to the PCE. What the PC Engine really needed is better marketing and sales in non-japanese markets which would make the platform more attractive to developers.

What would you rather release your game on, the PCE which is a failure outside of Japan or Super Famicom and Megadrive which are popular worldwide?

This also probably is the reason why the real SuperGrafx had only a literal handful of games... nobody wanted to waste their time on a system that nobody owned or even wanted.

There weren't any non-Japanese markets yet. The SuperGrafx launched the same time as the TurboGrafx-16 and Sega Genesis.

No one was wasting money releasing games for the  phantomware Super Famicom that nobody owned as it did not exist and no one knew yet that it would actually arrive a year later.

The Mega Drive had proven to be a dud and like the TG-16, their was no non-Japanese market yet.

What had transpired during the past year is that the PC Engine had made good on its launch promise of a revolutionary gaming experince in CD games that they literally invented.

When you're looking at Ys I & II next to the SGX and MD, why would you spend your money on anything else?

[dshadoff]

Fact check:

Black_Tiger is correct that SGX was released in Japan roughly at the same time as TurboGrafx and Genesis in North America, and a full year prior to SuperFamicom's release in Japan.
They were apparently afraid of the possibility of Sega and Nintendo catching up, which is why they flooded the market with different variations in 1989 - partly to give the consumer options, but also in order to convince the developers that the market was already mature, and that they were continuing to invest in it (which had truth to it, but was exaggerated - as consumers became confused from all the choices).

And while SignofZeta has some compelling arguments in his favour, this one is not correct:
"Nobody had any faith in it soon after conception and it was known that it wasn’t going to be a hit because they had ensured that by already moving back to regular PCE development prior to the actual SGX launch."

The SGX may not have had a lot of development going on, and some games may have eventually transitioned back to standard PC Engine while in development, but the games were released in 1989, 1990, and 1991.
I am sure that part of the reason for terminating development was the difficulty in making the most of the graphics resources, and another part being lack of sales of the hardware (due to limited releases). But these decision were not made prior to the system's release... only after.

[SignOfZeta]

Do we know that anyone at Hudson wanted the SGX or was it perhaps more of NEC’s idea? I wonder about this because it would explain everything.